El mundo es ancho y ajeno, de Ciro Alegría: Traducción y traición en la novela indigenista

Abstract

The work of Ciro Alegría exhibits, perhaps more intensely than in other writers of indigenismo, the struggle of the writer with language in the attempt to show the indigenous world from within. Peculiarly, the criticism that praises El mundo es ancho y ajeno (1941) as well as the criticism that questions it focus on the same aspect: whether or not the novel shows the indigenous world from the inside. More than to defend one critical position or another, I am interested in exploring, taking the novel itself as a starting point, why such opposing perceptions exist. While I recognize the influence of diverse external factors (political, cultural, literary institutions, professional egos, etc.), the final judgments unfold within the text and its particularly tense, ambiguous, irregular and transitional character which provokes dissimilar readings not only in different subjects but in the same reader.